Dede Cellar & Pantry, Baltimore
A stellar new addition for the West Cork restaurant stars.
Find your way to the little coastal village of Baltimore, in deepest West Cork, and you’ll discover that everything Ahmet Dede and Maria Archer do in dede and its younger siblings is delivered at benchmark level.
The cooking and service in dede? Stellar. Meticulous. Spellbinding.
The bistro food in Baba’de? Authoritative deliciousness, in every single bite.
The food and wine offer in dede Cellar & Pantry? A new chapter of excellence for West Cork.
The Cellar & Pantry is the third act of Maria and Ahmet’s grand drama, and it’s another 5-star effort. The handsome room is just down the street and around the corner from their other two destinations, overlooking the busy harbour.
With three destination addresses in the village the pair are rivalling Rick Stein’s culinary domination of Padstow, in Cornwall – which is nicknamed Padstein by the locals.
A large central table in the centre of the room holds some of the goodies and some of the (rather tasty) merch. The walls are lined with good bottles, which immediately makes C&P the best place to buy choice wines in West Cork. If you are hankering for a special Meursault, or a dry Turkish red wine, or a cool Picpoul to take away for a picnic, then it’s here for you.
But the USP here is not just the wines, it is the baking. The first Saturday morning we visited, the place was mobbed, and whilst the staff were hard pressed to cope with the unending queue for coffee and patisserie, they never lost their cool.
Part of the reason everyone was calm is that it only takes one bite of the baking to know that you have entered a sacristy of patisserie. The croissants are Lamination Heaven, and are possibly the finest we have ever enjoyed in Ireland. The folds of pastry and butter are so deft, so expert, the flavour runs so deep, that this is lamination as an art form.
But, get this: the caramel tart was even better. Better than the best? Well, somehow, yes. Great patisserie relies for its success on mathematical precision, and this was another statement of how the balance between pastry and sweet filling need to be in perfect alliance, perfect mathematical accord. It was crazy brilliant.
Just to prove that the kitchen can do whatever it wants, they have also reinvented the cinnamon bun. Yep, that staple of the Irish coffee shop is here revivified and reincarnated as a pillow of sweet dough topped with a cream cheese icing that is not like any cream cheese icing you have had before. Mad.
Of course we were back a day later, because C&P have a lunch offer which kicks off at 12.30. It’s concise: lobster roll on brioche with harissa lobster butter; smoked cod and haddock croquettes with house mustard mayo; cheese platter; charcuterie platter.
Because it was a Monday, after a sell-out weekend, the lobster was not on today’s menu. Know for another time, lobsters arrive Thursday, which is very agreeable of them -– so it was the croquettes, and a very fine charcuterie platter with lomo, salami, Parma and pistachio mortadella, with pickled red onion and house baguette.
In place of the lobster roll was a crudo of wild sea bass. Well why wouldn’t it be, because this isn’t your average lunch joint. The sparkling fresh fish was mixed through with Ahmed’s own tomatoes and a quick gazpacho sauce to bring it all together. A late arriving sweet dish was pistachio cruffin. Sweet Lord!
All the food can be eaten in house at a limited number of tables inside and out (grrr, why do people sit in a busy restaurant at lunchtime nursing one cup of already drunk coffee!). Chances are you will do both, sit in for breakfast or lunch, and take something home for tea.
dede Cellar & Pantry is another landmark for West Cork, in its own league. Oh and do buy a jar of Nar Ekşisi Pomegranate syrup on your way out.
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